I left school at 17 too with no certainty of uni placement. Didn't bring it up, assumed it was a different setup in England. :s

[iup=3569689]Alvin Flummux[/iup] wrote:I suppose I could support giving the vote to people that young if they could do away with FFTP and federalize the UK. Can they do that? Would they as a voting bloc have that ability, if they were given the vote?

I'd be wary of supporting a particular demographic based on the results you get, because from there it'd be a short jump to me going after pensioners with a light machinegun of some description (or, more pragmatically, going after their bus passes). I believe you'll get a fair and pragmatic debate out of the young voters that is bereft of influence by traditional media, what that results in would be up to them.

16 year olds should absolutely be allowed to vote, young people constantly get strawberry floated on things like university because the % of them that can actually vote against things such as parties wanting to raise fees is tiny. (Young here means 21 and under)

Take the last rise in uni fees, the people who were 18 at the time weren't affected by the tories deciding to raise the fees (and the libs going along with it) but those who were 16 at the election are paying out of their arses.

Gordon Brown should be made answerable for his "promise" that a timetable have been established and signed by the three main parties.

Miliband and Cameron have already back-pedalling over that.

I was surprised that it was strawberry floating Miliband who back-pedalled first. He've already committed political suidice for Labour in Scotland. Pretty no one with a sense will vote for Lib Dems or Labour again for a long time in Scotland (Tories is pretty much dead in Scotland so no need to mention them.)

SNP will sweep away the election next year in Scotland.

Denster wrote:My phone messaged me yesterday after i'd encouraged him to download and play the RESi demo.

From what I saw in the papers today Cameron seems to be following through, with further devolution of powers scheduled to be discussed in parliament on 16th October.And the exchange of further devolution for Scotland, but the removal of Scottish MPs being able to vote on purely English laws seems right to me. It seems just common sense. English MPs already have no vote on purely Scottish matters, as they shouldn't, and Scottish MPs shouldn't have a vote on purely English matters. It seems crazy that they still do.

EnglandIn England, your leaving age depends on when you were born. You can leave school on the last Friday in June as long as you’ll be 16 by the end of that year’s summer holidays.

You must stay in some form of education or training until your 18th birthday if you were born on or after 1 September 1997.

Your options are:

full-time education - eg at a school or collegean apprenticeship or traineeshippart-time education or training - as well as being employed, self-employed or volunteering for 20 hours or more a weekScotlandIn Scotland, if you turn 16 between 1 March and 30 September you can leave school after 31 May of that year.

If you turn 16 between 1 October and the end of February you can leave at the start of the Christmas holidays in that school year.

WalesIn Wales, you can leave school on the last Friday in June, as long as you’ll be 16 by the end of that school year’s summer holidays.

Northern IrelandIn Northern Ireland, if you turn 16 during the school year (between 1 September and 1 July) you can leave school after 30 June.

If you turn 16 between 2 July and 31 August you can’t leave school until 30 June the following year.

The last thing this country needs is more powers for the Scottish Parliament. It is already overpowered. It has control of things that should be equal across the whole of the UK. What part of someone's live in Livingston is so different to that of someone in Nottingham that they deserve different health services, different education services etc?

[iup=3569766]Fishfingers[/iup] wrote:The last thing this country needs is more powers for the Scottish Parliament. It is already overpowered. It has control of things that should be equal across the whole of the UK. What part of someone's live in Livingston is so different to that of someone in Nottingham that they deserve different health services, different education services etc?

Surely the better alternative is MORE power to Nottingham not less to Scotland? All regions/counties/cities/whatever should have the power to decide what's best for them, the more you devolve central power the more weight you give to every voter.

Imagine you feel really strongly that the drinking age in your town (we'll say it's Nottingham) should be raised to 21. At the moment you need to contact your MP and if you can convince him then he has to go and convince a few hundred other MPs that it's a good idea. Those MPs can disagree for all manner of reasons that aren't relevant to Nottingham and ultimately nothing ever changes.

Now imagine the same scenario, but the only people you need to convince are your MP and some of the Nottingham councillors, suddenly your individual power for change increases by an order of magnitude.

The Union and Westminster and the whole political system just means that nothing ever changes, because even if an MP really wants to change something for their constituents they have a near impossible task when it comes to changing anything significant.

If the Scottish referendum had been based on electoral seats, it would have been a 28-4 landslide. The 4 YES seats being the handout capitals of Scotland, with the longest marxist Labour controlled councils in the country. No-one interested in pointing this out?

Cal wrote:Interesting comment on another forum in another place caught my eye:

If the Scottish referendum had been based on electoral seats, it would have been a 28-4 landslide. The 4 YES seats being the handout capitals of Scotland, with the longest marxist Labour controlled councils in the country. No-one interested in pointing this out?

I think the whole referendum and the actions of all the politicians these last few days have left a very sour taste. You have Cameron trying to tie English reform to the Scottish reform, which is pretty daft as the Scottish issue has been dealt with separately and is a standalone pledge. Then you have Miliband completely wrong footed and without a clue of what's going on. Then today you have Salmond going back on the Edinburgh agreement and basically not accepting the result and suggesting Scotland could go independent anyway or wait until the no voters have died.

So all in all, and absolute pile of shite leaving nobody in doubt as to why there is no trust in politics.

[iup=3571132]Cal[/iup] wrote:Interesting comment on another forum in another place caught my eye:

If the Scottish referendum had been based on electoral seats, it would have been a 28-4 landslide. The 4 YES seats being the handout capitals of Scotland, with the longest marxist Labour controlled councils in the country. No-one interested in pointing this out?

[iup=3571132]Cal[/iup] wrote:Interesting comment on another forum in another place caught my eye:

If the Scottish referendum had been based on electoral seats, it would have been a 28-4 landslide. The 4 YES seats being the handout capitals of Scotland, with the longest marxist Labour controlled councils in the country. No-one interested in pointing this out?

Any truth to this? If so, .

A rousing argument for the gross innacuracy of first past the post.

I don't understand why he's shocked? It seems obvious that the people who are the worst off in society would be up for changing it.

Exactly. Conservatism tends to come from the well off. Why would you want to change a system which benefits you? Best to leave things as-is. No use fixing something if you can't personally see the damage.

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[iup=3571306]captain red dog[/iup] wrote:I think the whole referendum and the actions of all the politicians these last few days have left a very sour taste. You have Cameron trying to tie English reform to the Scottish reform, which is pretty daft as the Scottish issue has been dealt with separately and is a standalone pledge. Then you have Miliband completely wrong footed and without a clue of what's going on. Then today you have Salmond going back on the Edinburgh agreement and basically not accepting the result and suggesting Scotland could go independent anyway or wait until the no voters have died.

So all in all, and absolute pile of shite leaving nobody in doubt as to why there is no trust in politics.

I'd be surprised if Scotland doesn't become independent in my lifetime, in fairness.

Personally I would like us to remain united, but as something else. I don't see how we can have radically different laws and tax systems in such a small space. The way China does things might possibly work, with 'Special Economic Zones" for various regions, allowing them a bit more freedom within the country itself. But this would have to be decided by an overall federal government in order to make sure the rules don't strawberry float over everywhere else.

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